How many packs?

[Nodrama43]

2 people on a ten day trip without the need to carry water. Lake paddling and short carries. How many packs/barrels would you have in your canoe? What capacity are the packs. I am trying to wrap my head around just how much I will have. I am taking all the normal gear with an additional couple of Helonix swivel chairs and a Helonix table. Tent and a tarp, minimal clothes, food for ten days, etc....

I am wondering if I should have my pack, my wife have her pack, a shared equipment pack, and the food barrel pack?

 

[Mnoutdoorfunguy]

My wife and I use two Battle Lake Outdoors "Grand Portage" packs for two weeks in the BWCA/Quetico.
With an add-on, open pocket on the back, we are able to carry the PFD's and make single portages. The packs have plenty of capacity. With each trip, we are able to get the food, gear and weight pared down.

 

[Nodrama43]

Mnoutdoorfunguy you had 1080 cubic inches at your disposal.......

My three Frost river packs combined give me 7500 cubic inches......

 

[ThreeScoutDad]

Not sure if this will help or not, but here is what we did on our last trip to the BWCA. We went in on a Monday morning and paddled out on Friday morning. We were 2 adult and 4 youth ranging in age from 9 to 15 years. Our gear was not ultralight or supper compact. We used a 60L barrel for food and to store our cook kit, 2 Duluth style packs, i believe they are equivalent to a #3, and 2 large alice packs, plus everyone had a small personal pack, mine being a bit larger and packed full as I carried the first aid, maps, etc....

So for 10 days, you are looking at 60 meals, and we had 78 meals plus our cook kit in the 60L barrel. Our meals were homemade dehydrated or similiar.

For me and my two boys, we were able to get all of our personal items, tent, sleeping bags, and most group things in one of the duluth style and an Alice pack. I would think you should be able to get most of your stuff in a large portage pack, and a reasonable sized personal pack for both of you.

Hope this helps
Bryan

 

[Nodrama43]

thanks Bryan. I am planning on double carrying all the portages (with the current route chosen there are 11) and I can carry the canoe and one "lighter" pack at the same time while my wife carries a pack. then we go back and get the final two packs. I need to start packing some gear to get an idea. Planning on ordering the dedicated CSS barrel pack in the next day or so.

 

[Muskrat]

Depends a lot on what food and cooking gear you bring, as well as how you like to sleep. Test pack everything first. I could get a weeks worth of gear in a 25 lb. pack or a 100 lb. load. I've done both. I've eaten great and slept poor and vise versa. Pack what the other person you're journeying with wants and live with it. You'll have a great trip and they will too, and they'll want to go again with you, and might reconsider the load for the next time. So, lay out all the gear and pack it into however many packs it takes. My only practical piece of advice, bring an extra pack, dry bag, back pack, or leave some empty space in the primary packs, whatever. If it's wet out you can always use more storage volume without added weight.

 

[BWCA66]

For a trip like that 4 packs works well for me. It's nice for each person to have their own pack, a gear pack and a food pack is a good way to keep stuff organized. For me everything is in or on one of the packs.

 

[red langford]

That is a incredibly subjective question. I would say 2 packs, plus 2 small personal packs would be plenty. I saw three guys embark on a week long trip with one giant pack. Saw a family of 4 carry enough to completely outfit a medium size cottage too.

 

[Odyssey]

Everyone's "normal gear" is different. Even our own is different depending on the kind of trip we do. "Big kitchen" of big stove and lots of fresh food vs "small kitchen" of small stove and mostly dehydrated food means a difference in tripping style (base camping vs travelling) and packing (food barrel & kitchen pack vs just 1 food/kitchen barrel).
But for helpful means of discussion I'd suggest trying to keep number and size of packs down to two carries per portage including canoe for the both of you. Personally I don't mind two trips over a port, but hate a third. My canoe trip then becomes a hiking trip with a smattering of paddling sprinkled in. But that's just me. So for the two of you that might mean basically two bigger portage packs and two smaller ones. Packs too heavy can be a grunt; packs too many can be a PITA. Remember that a smaller pack can be carried T'd on a larger one. We do that with our 5th emergency bag.
Lay out your stuff and see what you can pack...and lift and carry. And then reduce it some more if you can.

 

[Boreal Birch]

One September, my best friend from my Bemidji State College days and I, took a 20 some day canoe trip into the BWCA and Quetico Park. We took two # 3 Duluth packs. On portages I carried the lighter pack with tent, sleeping bags, pads, rain gear and the Grumman canoe with paddles wedged in the bow and fishing rods tied to the thwarts, kinda under the gunnels. Mark carried the heavy pack with all the food (this was before freeze dried was common) in one hand he carried the cook kit by the bail of big pot and in the other the axe. We traveled all day, every day, one tripped all the portages and saw a wonderful amount of that part of the world. Toward the end to the days travel we would slow down and troll lures in likely areas try to catch a fish for supper.

 

[yellowcanoe]

We always try for two packs and a small third that the canoe bearer can wear while portaging.. The barrel for food.. A Ostrom Wabakimi for tent,tarp sleeping bags, pads clothes..extra shoes and chairs clipped to the exterior. Its over 6000 cu inches

We always find ourselves a little short when it comes to room for pots and stove.. hence the 30 liter bag to wear with a canoe.

The reason we try to carry this number of bags is that it makes double portaging unnecessary. Each person does one and a half portages

 

[Guest]

I carry solo, so it's different. Here's what I do. I have a large and small waterproof pack and a waterproof fanny pack with all my emergency stuff in it. I can single carry, but often don't. Sometimes I single carry the easy portions and double carry the hard ones. the fanny pack goes with me ALWAYS either on me or in the big pack. The big "camp pack" goes behind me and the smaller in front of me with stuff I may need when paddling. After many years it finally hit me to divide the carry into shorter Poses when double tripping.
Have fun, Turtle

 

[Nodrama43]

thank you for these responses. I admit it is an extremely subjective question that depends on many things. If I was still 25 years old I would still be in good enough condition to carry more weight and would probably not focus on being as comfortable in camp lol. The majority of our gear is ultra light high quality stuff. If we were river tripping and not portaging several times a day I would probably stick with the Frost River canvas, but in comparing weight versus cubic inches I can cut my pack weight itself by about 50%. I would think every pound matters....There will be 9 portages on the route and the average carry is 337m with the longest being 875m. I am going to weigh everything we plan on taking and then determine how much we can carry at a time including the canoe, paddles, PFD's, fishing poles etc. If we can carry everything at once that will help me determine pack selection.

 

[yellowcanoe]

I would just aim for two carries per portage. The distances are quite mild.. Heck triple carrying wouldn't be a bother either. Its when you get to Algonquin type portaging where the daily average is over 2000 m ( with the occasional 4000 m day) or the territory very rugged as in Temagami that portaging requires a lot of planning.

 

[Nodrama43]

No Title

found this while surfing. This type of carry interests me as well. This is a Granite Gear "Quetico" pack. It has good reviews as well but costs more than CCS and not made in the USA. I like the size of it. When at Canoecopia I will get a good luck at the CCS packs.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Front carrying is fine for roads like the person on the pic is doing.. Having seen someone quite injured from doing that I do not like that system.. You cannot see the details of where you are putting your feet.

The Quetico is quite small 82 liters. Why not the Superior 1 for ten bucks more? That is if you want to reduce pack numbers.. The Quetico would fit better on you if you are carrying the canoe too.

 

[Odyssey]

I might be getting old but I find myself really watching where I walk more and more these days, especially portaging. It's disconcerting to realize I'm not as nimble as I once was, even though I'm still youngish at 60 yrs. This is the reason I portage the canoe last unless I know the path really well already. I prefer to carry the lighter packs T'd rather than in front. It's a question of vision for me, not weight so much. And distribution is still fine over my shoulders too. I used to think this was just me, until I read recently in Cache Lake Country "Have you ever watched a good Indian packer going over a portage with a heavy load? He keeps his eyes on the trail at his feet, he looks for the roots and the rocks that might trip him. Generally he gets where he's going without falling."
I'm not trying to diss the front pack thing, but they aren't practical for me and where I carry. Despite my complaining during and after carries I actually love them. The only one I've always hated has been the easiest, a broad flat road of very short distance...but always crowded with addle-headed canoe campers. And speaking of watching where I'm walking, the trickiest has been a bushy walk on the Marshall trip; a section of trail memequay cut out. There were small and deep sunken pitfalls, just the right size for leg breaking mis-steps. I found them carefully one by one as I walked, and grabbed the tall undergrowth to break it aside so I and others might more easily see these foot traps. Scary trip ending crap if you can't see where you're stepping.

 

[lowangle al]

For 10 days I would take 3 #4 Duluths, an army duffle bag and a medium size seal line pack. I double carry portages taking 1 Duluth and the duffle bag on one trip and the canoe on the other. I like to have a lot of capacity in my bags. I don't like stuffing things in to make it fit and the only thing we hand carry would be a spare paddle.


I am also not a fan of carrying a pack in front. A friend thought he was clever when he showed me this method but he twisted his knee and we never made it to our destination.

 

[Canotrouge]

I'm not a fan of front carry either, other than on a "road" type path and even then.... Other than that I'm of no use, cause the trip we mostly do, we put the canoe in the water at the put in and take it out of the water at the take out lol... Since we don'T have carry, we tend to pack quite luxuriously( is that even a word?) But for the 3 of us, for 10 days, it is 2 main packs, the wanigan for kitchen stuff, a food barrel, and a cooler... then we have a a small day type pack for each of us, a few odd items like foldable light wait table and chairs

 

[Nodrama43]

front carry is out....very good points on footing, vision etc. My neighbors are going to think I am odd (well odder if that's a word) when they see me carrying my canoe around the field behind my pond wearing backpacks...lol